Are Your Bank’s Branches Too Small to Survive?

The future of bank branches is a topic sparking much debate among banking professionals. But most of the industry analysts tend to focus on changes in consumer behavior and the shift toward digital channels. There is, however, an even bigger challenge facing the industry: the sheer number of branches that are too small to be profitable.

Many simply aren’t growing at a sufficient rate, and will never reach profitability.

According to Peak Performance data, just slightly more than half (52%) of all branches in the banking industry are achieving acceptable levels of profitability. Over one quarter (28%) are below breakeven, and most of the remainder are at least contributing to overhead even if they are not achieving acceptable ROI.

That might be tolerable if unprofitable branches were growing at a sufficient rate to become profitable down the road, but they aren’t. Half of the branches that are unprofitable today will never cross the break-even threshold; they will forever be a drain on resources.